California Textbooks - 2

10-10-2008, 09:37 PM

Today on radio, Jewish group had just finished study on text book. They did study on content related study of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism only.
I am listing there finding, majority of them we know.

1. These books are for CA and Texas
2. Only Muslims are permitted to write content on Islam and for other religion, scholars not related to religion are writing content based on their own views of others religion. One example he gave, Palestine man was Jesus. Student had to say TRUE for this question.
Other example - Jews for centuries never contributed to Science or agriculture. Only Islam gave world Science, technology and agriculture.
3. Muslim organization is very well funded and they are involved in final printing. Publishers listen to Muslims just to keep them in good humor, worried about hate case etc.
4. States don't have funds to do any investigation which had given free hand to Muslims to change text book and contents of every religion.
5. Lack of competition in publishing house is main problem.
6. No supervision at any level on books.
7. Jews group now have dedicated budget for these studies and now trying fixing this problem at all level. Basically, they were asking other religion should join hands to defeat Muslim money advantage and make state to write books from people of their religion.

Shambhu · 10-10-2008, 09:51 PM

Re Above

Excellent!! If the Jewish community gets involved, that will really help get the truth out about the anti-hindu (and anti-Jewish) nature of the textbooks

12-10-2008, 08:50 PM

x-post
came via email:
It's sad that our eminent hysterian (dishonest and hostile academic) who uses the Wales chair for his gigantic behind's feeling heat for his shoddy work.

QUOTE
http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/sara...du-civilizationÂ Updated.

Hindu civilizational continuum (Book revie -2: Talageri's The Rigveda and the Avesta, 2008, with particular reference to critique of Witzel's unscholarly, unethical, dishonest, abusive, flip-flops)

Posted on the web at http://www.scribd.com/doc/8775936/witzel2

In my first review of the book published on Nov. 18, 2008 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/8116692/Talageri Annex 2 for ready reference), I had focused on the key points made by Shrikant Talageri in affirming the chronological sequence of Rigveda and Avesta.

I present a second review, pointing to the raison d'etre for Talageri's work: critiquing the 'scholarship' evidenced by Michael Witzel, a Harvard Professor.

I earnestly suggest that both Witzel and Hock should read Talageri's book (2008). If they need copies, I can have them couriered, provided I get the mailing addresses and a request. This suggestion is particularly directed to both Witzel and Hock whose false claims are shred by Talageri into pieces, with remarkable collation of evidence and scholarship.

If both Witzel and Hock do not read Talageri's work and do not respond to the specific points made by Talageri, I will have to continue Review 3 with particular reference to Hock's spurious linguistic arguments, also exposed by Talageri.

Shrikant Talageri has critically referred to Witzel throughout the book. Special sections dealing with him are chapter 1 (p.49-53), chapter 3 (p.117-129), chapter 5 (p.168-175), chapter 6 (290-307), chapter 8 (p.347-354). A few bon mots from these pages are annexed (Annex 1) so that the readers are encouraged to read Talageri's work in original. This is intended to show a flavour for the arguments of Talageri to fully expose the spurious scholarship of Witzel.

I strongly urge Witzel to read the above cited pages, and answer every point if he can; he also has the option to read the entire book. Of course, he will try to get away from this exercise as usual by breezy references to Talageri's profession as a bank employee and will avoid replying on the grounds that it is not necessary to do so! But other readers can draw their own conclusions.

Talageri has, demonstrated, with irrefutable evidence, Witzel, for example:

1. making up stories out of thin air (e.g., converting Vasistha into an Iranian and finding all kinds of evidence for this, p.50-52) ,

2. to be a confused 'scholar', forgetting on one page what he has written on another and therefore contradicting himself thoroughly (e.g., he makes Visvamitra the head of the coalition against Sudas in the Battle of the Ten Kings and has Visvamitra defeated and humiliated in this Battle, and then elsewhere he has the Visvamitras glorifying Sudas' victories in this very battle, p.52-53. Similarly, Witzel describes the Aryan incursion as the trickling-in of one Afghan Aryan tribe into the Indus area and emphatically rejects the idea of a violent military invasion, and then he himself describes a violent military invasion in detail, p.321-322), and

3. writing exactly the opposite after reading Talageri's book The Rigveda A Historical Analysis of what Witzel had written before reading it (for example on the Ganga, p.125-128, and on the Rigveda itself, p.348-353).Â

Talageri's work is a veritable expose of Witzel'sÂ 'scholarship'. Is Talageri trying to pour water on a duck's back? The duck will swim away, the spurious Professor stays on with water wetting most of his slippery work and demonstrating an example of motivated, dubious scholarship.

Sotto voce

J'accuse Harvard University of retaining and encouraging an academic who is intent only on denigrating the world heritage represented by the cultural foundations provided by Samskrtam.



It is doubly shameful that the University has allowed the Prince of Wales chair to be sullied by acquiescing in gross violation of academic ethics by an occupant of the furniture. Many instances of conduct unbecoming of a Harvard University have been brought to the notice of Harvard Corporation and no action has been taken. (See Vishal Agarwal's critique, Shree Vinekar's critique available on Harvard U. files. I will be happy to provide the references, if asked for). It is time for the prestigious institution to review, de novo, the contribution to knowledge made by this chair on the lines of the reviews undertaken in German schools resulting in the closure of Sanskrit/South Asia studies. It is tragic indeed that an occupant of the furniture called Prince of Wales chair has insulted the institution's standards of ethics and academic standards of excellence bringing scholarship to a gutter level.

In the name of education, vidyadevi Sarasvati, I urge the Provost of Harvard U. to institute an inquiry and throw the chair and its occupant out and redeem the University's image in the community and demonstrate social responsibility. It is shameful that an academic indulges in general abuses without facing up to, reading critiques and respond if he can or acknowledge ignorant arrogance and crass academic incompetence. This academic is a blot on the academe and a danger to the present and future generations of students (exemplified by the intemperate and abusive response to Review 1 of Talageri's work so diligently, painstakingly put together with remarkable integrity in search of truth.

I suppose this is the hallmark of all seekers of knowledge, including Harvard University and standing the test of contributions made to the enlightenment of young students in their earnest quest for satyam and enhancing their full potential to make contributions to abhyudayam and dharma.

Annex 1 Ripping apart Witzel's work of dubious 'scholarship'

NB: All page references are to Talageri's book (2008).

Chapter 1G (pages 49-50)

"There has been a strange failure, on the part of the scholars examining the evidence, to reach the unavoidable conclusions we have reached in this chapter. The reason for this is of course the fact that they have always viewed the data through the blinker of the AIT. But the failure runs deeper: there has been a tendency to manufacture evidence and indulge in fraudulent scholarship in order to provide substance to the theories which run contrary to the data.

"The level of fraudulent and make-believe scholarship which dominates the Aryan debate today can be gauged from the following: Michael Witzel, throughout his various writings, from WITZEL, 1995b:334-335 to WITZEL, 2005:344, keeps insisting that Vasistha is an 'Iranian' or an 'immigrant from Iran', even a 'self-proclaimed' Iranian immigrant. In WITZEL 2005: 335, he even refers to 'the origins of the Bharatas and Vasistha in eastern Iran.' â¦By what statistical logic does Witzel decide that Vasistha, of Book 7, 'avoids' the use of absolutives, presumably in sharp contrast to all the other composers making lavish use of absolutives in their compositions? As we can see, there six occurrences of absolutives in Book 7, compared to, for example, only three in Book 6, and five each in Books 4 and 5."

Chapter 1G (pages 51-2)

"The way in which Witzel arrives at his conclusions is in itself enough to show up his fraudulent scholarship. But what is significant, in the light of our analysis of the Avestan names in this chapter, is that while the Late Books 5,1 and 8-10 are literally overflowing with compound names of the Avestan type, such names are completely absent in Book 7, the Book of Vasistha (and also in the Early and Middle Books, 2-4, 6-7, which are the Books associated with the Bharatas. Bharatas are in fact referred to by this name only in the Family Books 2-7: the owrd Bharata in this sense does not occur even once in the non-family Books). In fact, the only Iranian names, of persons and tribes, in the Book of Vasistha, the 'self-proclaimed Iranian', are the names of the enemies of Vasistha and the Bharatas in the Battle of the Ten Kings: Kai, Kavasa, Prthus, Parsus, Pakthas, and Bhalanas."

Chapter 1G (Page 53)

"In other words, according to Witzel's account of the events, Vasistha ousted Visvamitra as the priest of Sudas; and, in revenge Visvamitra led a coalition of tribes in the Ten Kings' Battle against Sudas and Vasistha, and was 'completely' defeated. And, later, the descendants of Visvamitra composed a hymn III.53, in 'praise' and glorification of the Bharatas, in fond memory of the asvamedha organized to 'commemorate' and celebrate the 'triumphs' of Sudas and Vasistha and the defeat and humiliation of their own ancestor visvamitra!"

Chapter 3 (p.117-129)

"As a crusader in the holy cause of the AIT, who has collaborated closely with many of the eminent leftist historians in anti-OIT campaigns in the Indian media, Witzel contributes his bit to this campaignâ¦Witzel goes on to make the following juvenile comments: 'Incidentally, it is entirely unclear that the physical river Sarasvati is meant in some of these spurious hymns: in 6.49.7 the Sarasvati is a woman and in 50.12 a deity, not necessarily the river (Witzel 1984). (At 52.6, however, it is a river, and in 61.1.7 both a river and a deity â which can be located anywhere from the Arachosian Sarasvati to the Night time sky, with no clear localization' (WITZEL 2000b:7). These are clearly not the words of a scholar making serious statements on an academic subject: that the Sarasvati of VI.49.7 'is a woman' is ludicrous, to say the least! And if, in any reference, Sarasvati is the name of a deity or a woman, even an amateur student of the subject could tell Witzel that the circumstance presupposes the existence of a river named Sarasvati, since the word Sarasvati is clearly originally the name of a river: it means 'the one with many ponds' (WITZEL 1995a:105)â¦

"WITZEL.1995b:335, fn82). Here, he (Witzel) not only identifies the Sarasvati of the RIgveda with the Sarasvati of Kurukshetra which dried up progressively after 1500 BCE, but notes that it 'flows from the mountains to the sea' (a description now often sought to be transferred to the Harahvaiti of Afghanistan, with the Hamun-i-Hilmand being the 'sea' described in the verse), and accepts that it shows that the battle of ten kings took place prior to 1500 BCE. And nowhere, in that article or in his charts on the geographical data in the Rigveda, does Witzel talk about women and non-riverine deities, or about Arachosia or the Night time sky, in reference to the word Sarasvati in these Early Booksâ¦(WITZEL. 2000a: 6). Note what Witzel is writing shortly before reading TALAGERI 200: he repeatedly refers not only to Book 6 in general, not only to hymn VI.45 in general, but specifically to the verse in that hymn which refers to the Ganga, as pertaining to the 'early Rigvedic period' and as constituting part of the geographical data of 'the oldest books' and 'the oldest hymns', and he even takes up issue with other western scholars who think otherwise!"

Chapter 5 (p.168-175)

"WITZEL's FRAUDULENT ARGUMENTS. In a recent paper (WITZEL, 2005), Witzel argues, in some detail, a point frequently made by him earlier: that the Indo-Aryan elements in Mitanni indicate a pre-Rigvedic language, with linguistic features which necessarily rule out any idea that the Mitanni coluld have emigrated from India â that the Mitanni were in fact an offshoot of the pre-Rigvedic Indo-Aryans as yet on their way towards Indiaâ¦And all three points (of Witzel's arguments) are misleading or fraudulent:Â 1. The argument about 'retroflexation' is clearly fraudulent, since it is clearly impossible to know whether the Mitanni IA language had cerebral (retroflex) sounds or not. But, in either case, whether they had them or not, it constitutes no objection to their emigration from Rigvedic Indiaâ¦2. Witzel's second argument, about the absence of 'typical South Asian loan words' and 'local Indian words' in the Mitanni IA language is in the same fraudulent vein. The only Mitanni IA words in the record are the names of a handful of Vedic Gods, some numerals, some words connected with horses (their colours, chariots, racing, etc.), a handful of other words (e.g. mani), and, as Witzel aptly puts it, 'a large array of personal names adopted by the ruling class'â¦The limited available Mitanni IA wordlist can certainly be analysed, but how on earth can anyone presume to make categorical declarations about which words were absent in the Mitanni IA language?...3. Witzel's third argument is that the Mitanni words seem to preserve certain sounds which had been transformed into other sounds already in the RV language: the RV has edh, e and h where the reconstructed pre-RV forms (also in Iranian) were azd, ai and jh respectively, while the Mitanni IA words seem to preserve the original sounds. This argument is not necessarily fraudulent in its essence, but it is nevertheless as baseless and misleading as the othersâ¦Witzel, of course, usually refers to phonetic changes in 'minor details such as the pronunciation of svar instead of suvar, etc.', but (as in Deshpande, above) changes from azd to edh or ai/au to e/o could very logically have been among the changes affected in the phonetic redactions."

Chapter 6 (290-307) â 7G

"APPENDIX: WITZEL'S LINGUISTIC ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE OITâ¦we will examine the article presented by Michael Witzel (WITZEL 2005) in a volume edited by Edwin Bryant and Laurie Patton, published in 2005, which claims to present the linguistic case against the OITâ¦Witzel begins his linguistic arguments with an inadvertent admission that the AIT linguistic case is based on argumentative points rather than concrete evidenceâ¦Ironically, the case presented in Section 1 of this book (which I challenge Witzel to refute), for the Out-of-India scenario, is actually based on a combination of the Mitanni 'inscriptions' and the evidence of the Rigveda and Avesta, of which the material in the Rigveda has also frequently been referred to by Witzel as being 'equivalent to inscriptions' (see section 8C in the next chapter)â¦ In sum, all of Witzel's linguistic arguments are basically directed against three hypotheses which are treated as the core of the OIT case, but which form no part whatsoever of the case presented by us: (1) the 'Sanskrit-origin' hypothesisâ¦(2) the 'sequential movement of different groups' Out-of-India hypothesis (postulated by no-one, so far as I know) argued against by Hock (HOCK 1999a)â¦and (3) 'Misra's new dating of the RV at 5000 BCE' (WITZEL 2005: 358), from which Witzel decides: 'The autochthonous theory would have the RV at c. 5000 BCE or before the start of the Indus civilization at 2600 BCE', and 'according to the autochthonous theory, the Iranians had migrated westwards out of India well before the RV (2600-5000 BCE)' (WITZEL 2005: 369). Therefore, to sum up, there is no linguistic case at all, worth the name against the OIT case presented by us in our earlier books, and presented again with much more detail in this present book, especially in this chapter. The Indian homeland case presented by us answers all the linguistic requirements perfectly, while the AIT completely fails to answer any of them."

Chapter 8 (p.347-354)

"â¦the correctness of our classification (in TALAGERI 2000) of the Books of the Rigveda into Early, Middle and Late, and the fact that this is the 'right Rigveda', is established and proved by the way in which it 'predicted' the pattern of distribution of the Avestan names and name-elements (and other important words like ara, 'spokes') years before that distribution was demonstrated in this present book. A more fitting reply to Witzel's criticism could not have been foundâ¦As Witzel tells us elsewhere, 'we need to take the texts seriously, at their own word. A paradigm shift is necessaryâ¦' (WITZEL 2000b:332). Unfortunately, instead of taking the texts seriously at their own word, writers like Witzel have spent umpteen years and plenty of energy in producing voluminous piles of pure and incomprehensible nonsense based only on wild flights of their imagination, full of masses of chaotic details, wild speculations, mutually contradictory interpretations and conclusions, and ludicrous fairy tales, all of it leading nowhere."

Annex 2 Book review: S.G. Talageri, 2008, The Rigveda and the Avesta Ã¢â¬" the final evidence, Delhi, Aditya Prakashan interspersed with flippant, fraudulent comments by Witzel

12-15-2008, 02:13 AM

QUOTEDear Friend,

As we approach the end of the year, CAPEEM would like to appeal to your generosity and seek funds for the next phase of its lawsuit.

On December 12, the Expert Discovery phase came to an end in our lawsuit against the officials of the California Department of Education (CDE) and members of the State Board of Education (SBE).
During this phase that began in September this year, both CAPEEM and the Defendants presented expert statements. Prof. Joe Barnhart, an authority on Christianity, and Prof. Nathan Katz, an expert in religious studies, provided statements on behalf of CAPEEM. The Defendants provided statements from Luis Gonzalez-Reimann and Dr. Herbert Weissman who is a psychologist. Prof. Shiva Bajpai whose Historical Atlas of South Asia is the standard reference book on the history of the Indian subcontinent and Dr. Marlene Winell who is the author of Leaving the Fold submitted rebuttals to Gonzalez-Reimann and Dr. Weissman respectively.

While Prof. Barnhart's statement questioned the historicity of several biblical claims made in the textbook, Prof. Katz's report focused on castes among people in India who were not Hindus. Although Gonzalez-Reimann was the Defendants' expert, his report agreed with CAPEEM's claims on some points and he pointed out that the usage of the word 'Christ' in history books would amount to religious indoctrination. It must be noted that Romila Thapar, one of the opponents of our efforts to remove biblical indoctrination from textbooks, uses the word 'Christ' instead of the name Jesus in her book, and Gonzalez-Riemann's report can be seen as an attack on Romila Thapar's belief in the historicity of Jesus. Gonzalez-Reimann has also been used as an expert on DNA analysis, archaeology, Christian indoctrination and other topics despite having no qualification in these fields. He has challenged the findings of scientists published in leading journals in the field of genetics. Gonzalez-Reimann's description of Hinduism in his report also shows that his understanding of the topic is superficial.

During the Expert Discovery phase, Defendants filed two motions against us and took the deposition of Prof. Bajpai causing tremendous strain to our resources. At this point, we have completed most of the work related to technical issues, and the next few weeks should see summary judgment motions being filed by both sides. After the ruling on these motions, the case will go to trial.

The intensity of the process has drained us of our resources and we urgently require money to sustain our efforts in the coming weeks. While it is almost certain that the Defendants will file a motion for summary judgment, our decision to file such a pre-trial motion will depend on our ability to quickly raise sufficient money for the motion.

We hope that you will consider making a donation to CAPEEM so that we can not only fight off the motion that the Defendants are certain to file, but also have the resources to file our own summary judgment motion.

You can donate to CAPEEM by writing a check in favor of CAPEEM and mailing it to

CAPEEM
PO Box 280442
Northridge, CA 91328

You can also donate online by going to http://www.capeem.org and clicking on the link to donate. CAPEEM is a 501Â©(3) tax exempt organization with tax ID 56-2565521.

Thank you,
Arvind Kumar
Director, California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials
arvind @ capeem dot org

CAPEEM's is a 501Â©(3) tax exempt organization with tax ID 56-2565521. If you do not wish to receive updates from CAPEEM, please reply to this email with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.

12-15-2008, 02:28 AM

In wake of Mumbai attacks, it's only legitimate to question people who stood with L-e-T and FETNA in past. Email in yahoogroup..
QUOTEIt might be worthwhile to recall the hate-filled role that some
Indologists have played vis a vis terrorism in India. Lars Martin
Fosse, a Norwegian Indologist, and a moderator of the IER list, has
gone on record a few years ago saying that the activities Laskhar e
Toiba (which has been implicated in the current Islamic massacre of
Indians and foreign tourists in Mumbai) has been incited by Hindu
fanatics in India! Sort of a justification for Islamic terror! May
be he is privy to some secret information about LeT that we ordinary
mortals do not have access to.

Michael Witzel and Stephen Alan Farmer (aka Steve Farmer), who are
philogists and comparative historians respectively, and both also
moderators of the IER list, collaborated closely with Fetna in
200502006 to oppose Hindu edits in the CA textbook controversy.
FETNA has been accused of terrorism in Sri Lanka and by extension,
in India, since FETNA is claimed to be a front for LTTE.

Therefore, let us be always beware of academics with these dangerous
terrorism sympathies or associations and keep an eye on them. Their
scholarship is not objective as they might claim, and their
associations makes one wonder if it is not motivated by deep hatred
for their 'objects of study'.



And weasel denies links with shady groups:
QUOTESteve and I are said to have "collaborated with Fetna" (the
association of Tamils in America). We did not do so.

However, two of Fetna's (former) members have been accused of
organizing a weapons shipment to the Tamil rebels (LTTE) in Sri Lanka
(I do not know what has become of that allegation and have no time
to check it out).

Yep, no time to check out who's involved in terrorist activity and who's not.
Great going Witzel and sidekick Farmer, pretty convenient eh?

QUOTEOf course, all of these bandhus now make usÂ terrorists:
"collaborated with (a member of)Â Fetna = LTTE = Terrorists..."
Multiple bandhus, the validity of which is zero.

Guilt by (imagined) association.
Well well, how you and your 48 bunnies linking NRIs to those fetus disembowelers in Gujarat you like Weasel? What's good for goose is not good for ganduer?

12-16-2008, 02:00 AM

More on connections with shady elements.
Got this via email..
QUOTEIn any case, Lars Martin Fosse, a cosignatory on the petition and a collaborator of Witzel, wrote John Dayal and Amarjit Singh, citing Witzel
ï¿½s letter:.. Please note that Fosse uses the word "WE," clearly indicating that he is writing on behalf of a group while seeking mobilization of protestors. The only group one could think of in this situation is the list of cosignatories on the petition whom Witzel had addressed in his email. So, who are these people - John Dayal and Amarjit Singh - whom Fosse writes?...


According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal [SATP], Amarjit Singh is closely associated with the banned terror organization International Sikh Youth Federation [ISYF].[1]Many countries such as the USA[2] and the UK[3] have designated ISYF as a terrorist organization. Singh also heads the Khalistan Affairs Centre [KAC]. I am not implying that KAC is connected with Khalistani terrorism as I have no means to judge that but it is a well-known fact that Khalistani terrorists have massacred 21,000 innocent civilian Hindus and Sikhs, and have committed untold crimes such as rape of countless Sikh women.[4] A US State department notification states: Sikh terrorism is sponsored by expatriate and Indian Sikh groups who want to carve out an independent Sikh state called Khalistan (Land of the Pure) from Indian territory.[5] Khalistani terrorists were also tried for the bombing of the Air India civilian aircraft Kanishka in 1985, killing hundreds of innocent passengers.[6] Amarjit Singh is an advocate of Khalistan ideology.

There is no indication that Witzel or any other signatory on the petition condemned Fosse [himself a signatory] for unethically mobilizing political support and that too, by instigating highly controversial persons. It is beyond my comprehension how an academic could join hands with a rabid Christian fundamentalist and a proponent of the lethal Khalistan ideology. What kind of academics would sign the petition but remain silent and not condemn unethically seeking support from such controversial individuals?

http://www.christianaggression.org/item_di...S&id=1135985080 Christian Harvard professor launches anti-Hindu Crusade Posted December 30, 2005 By Dr. Srinivasan Kalyanaraman india-forum.com

[1] http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/kpsgill/secu.../04Feb21Pio.htm

[2]http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/appb.html and http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20040430-33.htmlÂ

[3] http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/security/terr...roups?version=1

[4] Bruce Hoffman "Holy Terror": The Implications Of Terrorism Motivated By A Religious Imperative RAND Paper P-7834, 1993 http://www.nwcitizen.com/publicgood/report...war3.htm#endn39 cf. Komerath, N: http://www.geocities.com/charcha_2000/essa...o.html#_ednref6

[5] http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/...eport/appb.html

[6] http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/in...er/Kanishka.htm

See also: April 30, 2006 NS Rajaram http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules...28&page=10

Bodhi · (This post was last modified: 03-03-2009, 01:15 PM by Bodhi.)

QUOTE>Â Â ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Â Â From: Steve Farmer <saf@...>
>Â Â Date: Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 11:01 AM
>Â Â Subject: [Indo-Eurasia] Effective End of the California Textbook
Case: The Summary Judgment
>
>Â Â I've uploaded to our server the full 63-page judgment that
effectively
>Â Â ends the California textbook case.Â
>Â Â Actually, after reading all of it, I find it eloquently speaks
for
>Â Â itself and needs little technical analysis. In brief, the Court
>Â Â summarily dismisses EVERY substantial claim of prejudice made on
>Â Â Constitutional grounds by the Hindutva plaintiffs (who currently
>Â Â go by the name CAPEEM -- a Hindutva group invented just to
>Â Â pursue this case).
>


QUOTE"N.S.Rajaram"
<nsrajaram@...> wrote:
>Â Â Â Don't believe any of Steve's interpretations, and they are his
interpretations only. He has been known to play fast and loose with facts before.
>Â Â Â Just wait for legal opinion.
>

QUOTEFrom: Koenraad Elst <koenraad.elst@>
Sent: 3/2/2009 11:16:00 PM

Dear comrades,

Cassandra wasn't liked much when her predictions of doom, that nobody had believed, came true. So I won't expect applause either. But you can go to the IndianCivilization yahoo list archive and see for yourselves that in early November 2005, immediately after the proposed edits for the CA textbooks became known, I diagnosed some crucial ones among them as wrong and as not having a chance to pass. (You can check it while I cannot because I've been banned from that list and still remain so.)

From my own archive I may now reproduce two comments I wrote on the matter after the CBE ruling. I don't remember where or when, and it doesn't matter, for the outcome was continually certain and the diagnosis self-evident from day one till today. So, for a little reflection in this hour of defeat:

>In the textbook battle, there was no need for a defeat if the small
mistakes that querulous little me had pointed out from the beginning had not been made.Â All it took was to use the opportunities provided by the system, viz. to propose edits that were historically and philosophically *impeccable* and then focus the attention on the dimension of equal treatment in the textbooks for all religions.Â The enemy can get away with lies, but the power equation is such that Hindus cannot.Â The smallest mistake you make will be fully and cruelly exploited by the enemy. The enemy was mobilized, and the Hindu proposals doomed, by a mere handful of less-than-impeccable edits:<

>1) To pretend that the AIT has been discarded, was simply
untruthful; the Hindu foundations could simply have stated that it is disputed.Â (I'm afraid that they had been misinformed by OIT triumphalists, whose "little knowledge is a dangerous thing".)Â More importantly, they could have delinked the origins of Hinduism from any theory regarding any "Aryans", for, as Talageri has convincingly argued, even the AIT itself accepts that a large part of Hinduism is of "indigenous, non-Aryan" origin.<

>2) To insist on presenting temple worship as "monotheistic"
(not "gods" but "God") was untruthful, or at least an unwarranted generalization.Â While I have learned in the ensuing discussions that there is such a thing as Vaishnava monotheism, fact remains that many Hindu temple-goers worship plural gods and experience them as plural rather than as faces of a single "God".<

>3) To resort to weasel expressions like "different but equal" to
deny the inequality of men and women in Vedic and later Hindu society was silly.Â And likewise for any hushing of caste inequality.Â
Instead, it would have been more correct to acknowledge that deliberate inequality was a feature of every single premodern society.Â A certain rewording of the existing text in this latter sense would have been justified.Â But anything that even smelled of caste negationism was sure to backfire.Â Or have NRIs in all their years in the West somehow managed not to learn that caste is the one thing that most Westerners know and *hate* about Hinduism?Â Moreover, while Muslims are known as violent, Hindus are likewise stereotyped to be hypocritical, and articles about caste never fail to mention upper-caste hypocrisy (sweet-talking "brahmins and sweepers are different but equal", politicians inviting Harijans for dinner and then having the whole house cleaned with cow-dung to remove the taint of their presence, etc., all standard fare in Western texts about living Hinduism), so being caught as whitewashing the Hindu record on caste is fatal.Â Again, certain corrections were possible, but plumply denying caste inequality was inviting trouble.<

>4) To use the Hindiwallah form "Buddh" instead of the proper
Sanskrit form "Buddha", accepted in English and in most languages including most Indian languages, was boorish, fully living up to the stereotype of the backward Hindi belt.Â While not important in itself, this spelling betrayed the lack of alertness to the public's standards, and the limited horizon, nay the wilful self-centredness of certain Hindutva circles.<

>5)Â In a later stage, irresponsible ranters rushed in with their
counterproductive contributions, gleefully exhibited on the Indo- Eurasian Research list as evidence of the moron quality of the Hindu position.Â This included crass lies e.g. about Steve Farmer being a "creationist", and in the last few days even misrepresenting a Pico della Mirandola quotation from his PhD thesis as his own words.Â

Whatever the 19th-century associations of the AIT with creationism, every US observer could tell that Farmer *is* not a creationist (nor even a Christian), and hence that those who made this allegation were liars.Â Again, the enemy could have gotten away with such lies, but in the Hindu case these were bound to be exposed and to taint the whole Hindu position.Â Brave and capable contributors like Vishal and Kalavai Venkat found themselves tainted and deprived of credibility purely by association with those hotheads.Â (On this list too, we've had hotheads argue in favour of the right to use lies, regardless of its moral wrongness and its strategic counterproductiveness.)<

>Those who took the initiative to propose the edits were religious
people with limited knowledge of the way of the world, esp. of contemporary American sensibilities.Â They surely meant well, but if they had applied their minds to the question of how the American authorities would react, could they not have foreseen this opposition?Â Whoever will take similar initiatives in the future will need to impress upon himself and on all his supporters that good intentions are not enough.Â The hostile power equation imposes serious constraints, which were ignored this time by the naive Hindu religionists who took the initiative, and later by foolish Hindu polemicists who joined the fray with their own two cents' worth.Â But it is not all-suffocating and leaves room for manoeuvre to those who know how to play by the rules.<

And another comment:

> After the defeat of the Hindu side in the textbook controversy,
some list members have called for a frank discussion to diagnose the causes of this failure.Â So, I have offered my diagnosis: the Hindu proposals were thrown out because

(1) a few were conspicuously inaccurate and invited the charge of "history falsification", which in the present power equation was bound to be fatal;

(2) a few people involved had connections with the RSS, which attracted charges of complicity in communal riots in India and in everything the RSS is notorious for,-- often unfairly, but then it is the RSS's long-standing policy to ignore the media, as if the media aren't very consequential in this day and age, not just for the RSS's own reputation but for the reputation of Hinduism as such, of which the RSS claims to be the guardian;

(3) by mishandling the textbook reform process in India, the RSS/BJP had set a precedent and associated Hindu advocacy with history falsification in the minds of the public, a mental impression that could easily be spoonfed to ignorant outsiders like the California education board.<
>

After the Hindu defeat at the CA Board of Education, I was asked not to comment in public on the emerging CAPEEM litigation initiative, so I've kept mum while the court case was developing. But at no point did I come across any information that indicated I might be proven wrong in the end. And so the latest is that Witzel and Farmer are crowing victory over the CAPEEM verdict, which puts an end to the attempt at rewriting the textbooks in a less anti-Hindu sense.

Regardless of their own comments, the actual quotations from the verdict, though of course selective, are simply incompatible with any claim of Hindu/CAPEEM victory. Now, 36 hours after Dr. Rajaram's cheer-up message, I still see no good news coming in. Let's just agree that the Hindu side has suffered a smashing defeat, right?

It's not the first time. In Delhi too, the textbook overhaul under MM Joshi ca. 2002 ended in embarassment, ridicule and an subsequent massive strengthening of the Marxist hold on the textbooks. At the conference in Delhi IIC last January, the usual wailing could be heard about the anti-Hindu bias in the textbooks. No mention was made of the fact that the BJP had been in charge for six years and that the textbooks had been changed already, only so miserably that the Congress-Communist combine had no problem at all justifying a return to the anti-Hindu textbooks. The conference had no session on: "What did we do wrong?" This time around, I suggest that all those involved in or cheering for the CA textbook edit proposals face their own failure and do some honest soul-searching.

In the 1990s, under SR Goel's guidance, an alternative Hindu school of history was emerging. Today, most people involved (Harsh Narain, AK Chatterjee, KS Lal, BR Grover, Goel himself) have left this world, and their precious legacy has been mismanaged and squandered. MM Joshi and his acolytes in India and the USA carry a heavy burden of guilt. I'd like to say something more constructive and future- oriented than this, but for now it is best to let the realization of utter defeat fully sink in.

Kind regards,

KE

Husky · (This post was last modified: 03-04-2009, 05:29 AM by Husky.)

^

I wouldn't be surprised if they had lost, but for different reasons from Elst.

It's naivete to think Hindus stand any chance in the US. There is no dialoguing with christianism. It will fully crush paganism, and it will *most certainly* do so completely in a christian country. Hindus who live in America don't seem to realise that for some reason, but instead think that they have a chance for equality. The appearance of equality in the US is only an illusion.
Much of the christoterrorism against Hindu Dharma in Bharatam originates in the US, and from the US government. If that isn't an indication as to their intent to eradicate Hindu Dharma, I don't know what is.

IMO, it would have been better had CAPEEM made the case to get Hindu Dharma out of school textbooks altogether - the way Taoism, Shinto, Hellenismos, Mazda Yasna, African religions, Native American religions, NW European heathenry and others are probably not covered. Of course this would not have succeeded either most likely - explicit dawaganda against and demonisation of Hindu Dharma and Hindus is the first and essential step for christianism in its attempts to convert Hindu Bharatam - but it would have been the only right course to take.

If Hindus don't want their kids to learn christian propaganda against Hindu Dharma, then don't live in the US. Simple. And it's the only way to avoid it. Same as how it would be futile for Jews in the first half of the 20th century to expect anything living in christian Germany.

The real war is in Bharatam and for Bharatam, I wish those who lived outside and cared for Hindu Dharma would stop getting distracted. There is no future for NRIs, there may be one for the Hindu generations still in Bharatam. They're all that *ought* to matter.

Christoislamicommunism won't let Hindus be. They can't bear that "Hateful Paganism" (Hindu Dharma in this case) is still being adhered to somewhere in the world, and that Hindus moreover have a country to themselves (which means they can't be genocided so easily). You can see this from the fact that the christian world gets so agitated by our continued existence that they go out of their way to make an anti-Hindu propaganda movie. A movie which is only different from the christian nazis' anti-Jewish and anti-Slav propaganda movies in that its propaganda is more subtle and therefore more effective, attuned to the times.

Bodhi · (This post was last modified: 03-03-2009, 04:32 PM by Bodhi.)

well, while I generally agree, I think one has to bear in mind that unlike the bible belt in south east, California is one of the least "Christian" and most "liberal" states in the US. We have to differenciate between the anti-Hindu energy coming from mlechCha stream and christian stream, and do away with the tendency of equating the two. Here it is mlechCha-ism at play not so much christianism, while the two collude on so many agenda points.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 06-12-2009, 09:04 PM by Husky.)

QUOTE(Bodhi @ Mar 3 2009, 04:19 PM)well, while I generally agree, I think one has to bear in mind that unlike the bible belt in south east, California is one of the least "Christian" and most "liberal" states in the US.Â We have to differenciate between the anti-Hindu energy coming from mlechCha stream and christian stream, and do away with the tendency of equating the two.Â Here it is mlechCha-ism at play not so much christianism, while the two collude on so many agenda points.
[right][snapback]95138[/snapback][/right]Psecularism is a facade of christianism. Christianism doesn't only use christian members. Christian-conditioned society need not be christian at all and still it will act invariably christian.

Long ago, the Church called the christian monarchies its "secular arm". It used this "secular arm" in wiping out Jews and heretics in its lands, the secular arm presided in tribunals of judgement of witches, heretics and Jews and pronounced the sentences of torture and death. The church wouldn't do this (it only puppeted the secular arm), because it is important for the church that it must not be seen to have any blood to stain its own hands (see for instance Joseph McCabe, IIRC he covers this important principle of the catholic church in a clear summary). Of course, back then the "secular arm" was entirely christian, it just didn't consist of ordained members.

In our time, there is a 'real' secular arm: the christian-conditioned arm - the modern secular governments of the west including their secular education. It may not profess christianism, but all of christian society is guided by christianism and christian hatred and/or (at best) non-understanding of paganism.

Consider Joseph McCabe. He left catholicism and became an atheist. One doesn't need to guess where he'd be on Hindu Dharma - I am sure he would have found it a greater superstition and falsehood than the catholic religion he knew intimately. Why? Because he is christoconditioned. He referred to Aurelius' Meditations as a piece of "soporific" (sleep-inducing, I believe) writing. He doesn't understand. And he never will. Because he can't.
Another example to do with him. Read between the lines in his description of Constantine's dad's view of 'God' - that it was monotheistic and was 'therefore' better than ('a step up' from) the traditional Greco-Roman view (a value judgement that McCabe is placing because of his christo-conditioning):
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical...chapter_16.html
QUOTEConstantius, on the contrary, seems to have been an easy-going and more or less cultivated man. He believed, with the Greek and Roman philosophers, in one god whose reality was figured or caricatured in all the deities of the Roman religion; and there can be little doubt -- indeed, it is clear -- that he transmitted his mild philosophy to his son Constantine.Look at his wording - cultivated, philosophers, figured, caricatured, mild, philosophy - they add subjectivity, they show his views.
Such things are the ingrained biases in ex-christians and all of christian-conditioned society. (And Joseph McCabe is one of the greater intellectuals of the west, btw.) They think themselves open-minded, secular, knowledgeable, accepting even - right upto the point where they encounter the real pagan. And now, instead of giving them the European GrecoRomans for consideration, show them the Hindoo. And you (and they) will find that they suddenly do have far more in common with their christian counterparts after all, than they do with the pagans: in their prejudices and drawing up their noses at our way of life and what they think are our 'superstitious beliefs'.
(And note also that McCabe's initial sympathies during WWII years were predictably with the 'atheist' movement in Russia - as communism was called back then. This is usually another inevitability: there are two kinds of western christians - those who are christian and those who are anti-christian, such as the communists, such as the 'unreligious' fascists and neo-nazis. I don't think McCabe would have been a communist, but the comparatively little that was revealed to him at the time of what Soviet Russia stood for, did get his approval because it sounded good to him in theory.)

When Russell called communism a christian heresy, he was right. It is christian in every way except that it thinks it is not christianism and thinks it is against christianism. In every other respect it is exactly the same: the same exterminatory ideology, the same pattern of behaviour and thinking. And that also explains why Marx was a big fan of Britain's tyrannical oppression of Hindu Bharatam, and that's why he actually approved of Britain trying to convert Hindus into the 'Better Opium' of the masses, than leaving us to our dark 'superstition' of Hindu Dharma.

Consider how some people who quit christianism in the US are still as anti-semitic as before they left. (The Russian communists were the same.) And even when they call themselves anti-christian (like many racist/oryan orgs in AmeriKKKa), they are otherwise still christian in every way: all their previous hatreds, prejudices, ideas are still there. There is so little to distinguish between their christian and 'post'-christian selves.

Think of the way westernised (christo-conditioned) elements in psecular, non-christian Indian society have no understanding of Hindus or Hindu traditions. The Hindu way is entirely alien to them, they have been alienated from it by christian thinking patterns so that they now view it with practically the same non-comprehension as the west views it. This is a form of christianisation too. Even their arguments against Hindu Dharma are the old christian arguments.

There are many layers of christianism. Considering the west again, even after they quit the belief in jeebus and other christian fables, it doesn't mean they quit the orbit of thinking imposed on them by christianism. They cannot think outside of their box of conditioning. The very best that a christian-conditioned society can produce is a Thomas Paine (and there was only ever one). Never a Julian. The first is floating at the very outer boundaries of the box that christian-conditioning allows for, the second inhabits a different universe altogether.
Moreover, Deism (the religion of Thomas Paine) is the only decent religion that can arise in a world devastated by christianism, in a christian-conditioned society. And even that has little chance of success as the history of the Americas has shown. It's a religion with a very general, though positive, idea of some 'God' (the Creator). I'm not saying it's untrue, I'm just saying they do not have the benefit of experience the way Native Americans are vindicated in their ancient traditions. The Deist Creator will remain unknown to them because they think he is otherwise unknowable in this world (other than in regular nature). The religion is founded on an idea, a belief. It doesn't have the sort of knowledge of its God that ages of Taoist or Shinto experience has developed with their Gods.

America and the entire west is still christo-conditioned. It's embedded deep into their view on everything. They *know* nothing else, they're not used to contemplating concepts outside it. And anything they encounter beyond their ken is alien to them and they are prone to misunderstand, presume or judge it. America/west does not see Hindu Dharma on an equal plane to other religions.

Of course there is the atheist Carl Sagan with his kind sympathetic view of Hindu Dharma, and the UK's atheist David Attenborough with his non-judgemental bit on the Kumbha Mela and the Temple of Rats (Rajasthan?) in Life of Mammals. Carl Sagan is the *best* we can expect, but he's not the rule. He's the exception. David Attenborough is the next best, and even he is a rarity. A Joseph McCabe, however helpful against christianism, will not even be able to understand Hellenismos let alone us. And he *will* make value-judgements, and they will be derived in a straight line from his christian conditioning. But his is certainly not the worst nor even the most common consideration we can expect.

The kinder western non-christian seekers will be pleased with Buddhism - generally just the ideas of Buddhism. He'll be pleased with Hindu philosophy, including Vedanta, and of course the Gita. And definitely approve of Yoga. He may even be pleased with some stream of Hindu Dharma that seems monotheistic enough. And that's where all sympathies with Hindu Dharma will stop. It's exactly how western atheists since enlightenment were in love with Greek philosophy and Roman historiography but never sympathised with nor understood the actual traditions of the general Greco-Roman population. At best, the Olympic Gods and their narratives made for artistic inspiration. Though usually, western intellectuals have always described how Greek philosophy was 'inevitable' and that it 'naturally replaced' - in the human mental evolutionary sense - the Religio surrounding the Olympic Gods, whom they consider (as McCabe does) to be ridiculous and unreal. In the same manner, there are westerners that have been impressed with the Tao te Ching since it is 'philosophical' enough, but what they can't compute is when they find out that the real (traditional Chinese) Taoists have Gods. Western sympathizers of Taoism take great pains to tell Taoists that they "can't have Gods", that it's 'not actually' part of their religion, that they are confused and 'corrupting' their Taoism and not practising it the way it 'originally' was. There is only so much 'sympathy' most of the best of the west can give us. And that's the *best* I'm talking about.
You see, a lot of the ground-level Hindu Dharma does not compute to the west. Even the merely christoconditioned can recognise this as Paganism and generally has an intrinsic (christianism-instilled/christian-programmed) apathy for it. The west is christowest because it is christoconditioned, even when not consciously christian.

This is *very* different from how E Asian people (with a background in a natural tradition) who know nothing about Hindu Dharma view us. They are quite open to understanding even all those things that to western people would be the most outrageous elements in Hindu Dharma. The difference is entirely the way their minds have been cultivated, versus the way the west's been conditioned by christianism.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 03-09-2009, 04:47 PM by Husky.)

QUOTE(Bodhi @ Mar 3 2009, 04:19 PM)well, while I generally agree, I think one has to bear in mind that unlike the bible belt in south east, California is one of the least "Christian" and most "liberal" states in the US.Â We have to differenciate between the anti-Hindu energy coming from mlechCha stream and christian stream, and do away with the tendency of equating the two.Â Here it is mlechCha-ism at play not so much christianism, while the two collude on so many agenda points.
[right][snapback]95138[/snapback][/right]
In #270, had assumed the above was about US and California in general. But maybe it was about the American textbooks/anti-Hindu pseudo-literati people instead?

Already posted, but it's sort of related to the context:

1. http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blog/post...me/comments.htm
QUOTERajiv Malhotra comments: on Feb 1 2005 1:26PM
NEW YORK TIMES AND THE UCHICAGO CARTEL:
To uncover the long reach of this cartel and how it placed the recent New York Times article, one starts with Prof. Martin Marty who is one of the most powerful scholars at UChicagoâs Divinity School. (This school produces the largest number of PhDs on Hinduism Studies, through its faculty which includes Wendy Doniger.)

Martin Marty now runs the powerful institute of religion at UChicago named after him.
(See: http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/about/index.shtml )
It says, âThe Martin Marty Center is the institute for advanced research in all fields of the study of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.â

Who is Martin Marty and how does he fit into the Chicago Cartel? He is described on his own web page as âan ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.â See: http://www.elca.org/about.html about this church.) On the question, âIs the Bible the inerrant word of God,â they explain clearly that they are what I would classify as History-Centric and literal. See: http://www.elca.org/questions/Results.asp?recid=16 . They believe that Christ is coming back to raise people from the dead. Furthermore, they assert, âTheories of reincarnation are the antithesis of Lutheran theology.â It is proudly a very âmembership orientedâ institution in every sense of that term, with a vast third world franchise to convert people.

His bio boasts that he was the senior editor of the magazine, âThe Christian Century.â See more about this Christian-centric magazine: http://www.christiancentury.org/ He is described as the nationâs most prominent authors in the field of History of Religions. Along with Wendy Doniger and a few other colleagues, he has helped trained and get influential jobs for a whole generation of scholars and college teachers who now represent Hinduismâs portrayals.

Wendy Doniger and Martin Marty are part of the old boys/girls network and go way back. There is nothing wrong with them being very tight and standing up for each other. See both of these cartel big wigs featured at the Martin Marty Centerâs web site:
http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/about/index.shtml

It is only natural that Wendy Doniger is putting her cartel to good use in this PR campaign to demonize Hindus and anyone who criticizes her. However, it is interesting to notice how blatantly these Christian fundamentalists are respected in the âsecularâ academy/media, because they tend to be well groomed, polished, articulate, with good pedigrees, and most of all, with a good network of contacts (read âcartelâ membership).

Such fundamentalist Christians are the âexpertâ sources used by media to call us âHindu Fundamentalistsâ! All evidence of their conflicts of interest, such as their churchesâ aggressive proselytizing against Hindus in India, get airbrushed away as a sort of denial by the media and by the scholars who fail to highlight these conflicts when featuring their writings.

The following sequence of events is interesting to track:

1) First Marty Martin wrote a one-sided article in Beliefnet to hit at Wendy Donigerâs critics, titled, âScholars of Hinduism under attackâ. See: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/128/story_12899_1.html In typical Biblical style of martyrdom, it positions the âgoodâ side as âvictimsâ of the âbadâ side.

2) But this got largely neutralized when others such as Sankrant Sanu wrote rejoinders on the same portal. See Sankrantâs rejoinder at: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/146/story_14684_1.html

3) Now let us we come to the cartelâs links with New York Times. Edward Rothstein is co-author with Martin Marty in their OUP book. See:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subj...a&ci=0195144619

4) Naturally, as co-authors it would be natural for them to be close and help each other, and to participate in each otherâs networks. So Edward Rothstein wrote the recent New York Times article in which he headlines Wendy Donigerâs critics as âHindu Puritansâ. He goes on to brand those who oppose her as âHindu fundamentalistsâ and so forth. Many persons have called the article things like âoutright stupid and incompetent journalismâ, âinsulting to Hindus,â etc. The journalist failed to even contact those he criticized for an interview, presumably out of fear that the truth disclosed might work against his agenda.

Do the higher ups at the Times even know what these hidden links and potential conflicts of interest are? How well-educated are they on the complex dynamics of our Hindu minorityâs American situation? One wonders why the standards of journalism that even my son's undergraduate class at NYU learns were allowed to drop in the case of this article. What strings were pulled and for what considerations?

So please stop being naÃ¯ve about âeducatingâ these cartel folks, etc. They are intellectually and politically armed and dangerous.

Regards,
RajivThese people are not merely christo-conditioned, they seem to be on fire. For christianism. They may hide it, but that's another matter. Cryptochristianism is not purely an Indian convert's thing. The jesuits did it, the western-christian infiltrators into India did it (for example, Bede Griffiths, de Nobili), Max Mueller played the neutral (pseudo-)'scientist' for as long as history could keep his secret, and there are other examples. Sonia tried playing the Secular Wife Of The Secular Indian, and to many an Indian she is still 'secular'. <- The ruse is easy to perform.

Ultra-venom towards Hindu Dharma does not generally come from merely psecular christo-conditioned people. Nor does a lifetime and career devoted to undoing Hindu Dharma and plotting its demise. These require greater motivations, a sacrifice of effort and time for what they are convinced is a higher purpose - driven by certainty that they are Right and All Else Is Wrong, a belief in something else.

Regular American Atheists' anti-pathy towards Hindus is nowhere near the same level. Although there are some exceptions (and it is always a curiosity to discover where that stems from....)

(Am not interested in Steve Farmer's persuasions. It suffices to know he's persuadable: he's obviously not bright; they may have merely hired him to play sidekick since every main character needs one. Not very complimentary, I know, but the dummy's part *has* to be filled, right?)

2. The following is Ari Saja writing on Witzel and his buddies (they pay him to be their friend, or he pays them to be his friends - not sure, as I'm not very familiar with the details of how prostitution works...)

Whatever these people's undisclosed private beliefs may be (I tend to not give much weight to their public declarations on their beliefs, because telling the truth is neither in their interest nor within their ken), but one certainly can't accuse them of being 'religiously neutral' in their public affiliations:
http://arisaja.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/...d-yet-again.htm
QUOTEThe Subpoena compels Witzel to reveal the true identity of "Arun Vajpayee".

â¦It is now widely known, and documents produced by third parties confirm, that Witzel coordinated with other anti-Hindu groups who objected to the Initial Revisionsâ¦DFN' s founder, Dr. Joseph D'Souza is also the President of the "All India Christian Council" and maintains close ties to evangelical Christian groups such as the 700 club.

Discussionâ¦Witzel's Bias, Hostility, and Back-Channel Communications are Squarely at Issue 

Witzel's conduct during the Adoption Process is central to CAPEEM's caseâ¦that Witzel (and others) were "hostile" academic advisors and engaged in secret processes is relevantâ¦
The sought after communications are necessary to show procedural improprietiesâ¦While the CDE prevented Professor Bajpai from communicating with Publishers and being "lobbied" by Publishers, it is likely that Witzel was allowed to freely communicate with Publishersâ¦
The sought after communications are necessary to show biasâ¦In one of the emails produced by DFN, Witzel notes "(p)lease check what Wikipedia says about your organizationâ¦They always put back what I erase." In reaction to the forwarded message, DFN's Executive Director asks whether "(DFN) canâ¦edit this ourselvesâ¦I do not want to start being identified as a mission (sic) organizationâ¦" â¦many principals of DFN are unabashed in their antagonism towards Hinduism. For example, Kancha Ilaiah, one of the signatories to a DFN letter to the CDE and an affiliate of DFN stated in an interview that he "hate(s) Hinduism." Mr. Ilaiah states: "Is Hinduism a religion of the stature of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity? In my view, Hinduism is not a religion. It is a cult of worshipping certain violent figures. A religion never worships a violent figure. Religion is a very enlightened social force. Religion is a very civilized thing that came into existence. Religion establishes certainâ¦covenants. Hindiusm is basically a spiritual fascist cult." Witzel's communication with DFN and other third parties show his biasâ¦These include his communications with Roger Pearson (an avowed racial purist) in whose journal Witzel's article appeared, and certain postings to internet webpages where Witzel makes statements indicative of his bias.
, has been proved to be anything but an "impartial expert" or "world authority" to judge the middle-school textbook content on Hinduism or India.

From the facts given below, it is clear that Wizel is nothing but a "volunteer" (until his pay is revealed) for right-wing "Xtian" fundamentalist hate groups.

Mr. Witzel has been in regular communication with the leaders of rabid fundamentalist XtianÂ Commercial Conversion groups, and assiduously tries to edit content on the web-based "Wikipedia" portal, mainly to distort the nature of his backers.

3. Then again, the christian association with looney anti-Hindus and the western academia's association with the exact same looney anti-Hindus may just be coincidental. Or not.

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/reviews/hock.html
QUOTENow, these anti-Hindu forces are exploiting the AIT to the hilt, infusing crank racism in vast doses into India's body politic. Read e.g. Kancha Ilaiah's book Why I Am Not a Hindu (Calcutta 1996), sponsored by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, with its anti-Brahmin cartoons: move the hairlocks of the Brahmin villains from the back of the head to just in front of their ears, and you get exact replicas of the anti-Semitic cartoons from the Nazi paper Der Stuermer.

This crank Dalit tendency is strongly patronized by the Christian missions, witness the distribution of one of the Bahujan Swayamsevak Sangathan's anti-Hindu pamphlets at the Indian Catholic bishops' Delhi press conference just before the Pope's visit in November 1999.

Many of V.T. Rajshekar's brochures (Dalit Sahitya Akademy, Bangalore) are transcripts of speeches given at Christian conferences. Like pure Indian Marxism before, this lumpen anti-Brahminism is also well-liked and even patronized by Western academe. Thus, Ilaiah was invited to contribute to the American University Press book Democracy in India, a Hollow Shell edited by Prof. Arthur Bonner.

Personally, my money's on the US government: that *it* is what's arranging all these contacts, in order to make a wide, impassable net. It's part of their long-distance leveraging of India/subversion of Bharatam program, in the hopes it may implode. Yeah, I'm sure if it does ever implode, it'll implode all over AmeriKKKa.

Some of the sentiments driving it - of its foot soldiers of USAID/Joshua Project/CIA's own missionaries at least, and right up to the handy evangelical sockpuppets like born-again Bush - are certainly christian.

ADDED:
Think it's a bad idea to just assume that it's nothing more than non-ideological 'mlechCha-ism'. Hindus tend to state openly what they are, but the other side derives a great benefit from not saying anything about what motivates them. So they are almost neutrally motivated is it, 'merely' by a conviction that they are right about what's in the textbooks or in the wendy's spawn's books? There is no neutrality. It's a bit like that 'whiteness' thing: people just look past it.

Hindus have to stare back, watch their actions and work out what's driving them. Something certainly is. If the antagonists can latch onto hate-groups and evangelical outfits to drive their views home, then it proves they are not honestly motivated. Because it's not some conviction on their part that they're right, that they have all the facts to hand and that the stubborn Hindus just don't seem to accept it. If that was all, they'd never have chosen to ally themselves with disreputable and downright disturbed entities.

I think working out the 'psychology' of the set(s) of people Hindus are being antagonised by is one of the most important things. It will give Hindus an advantage they sorely need, at least it will develop an alertness. Until that happens, Hindus just continue to take everyone and everything at face value, and consequently take others' words and ideas as coming from some sincere or at least neutral place. But it's not. Hindus are the ones that have been honest here: they've said up front they are Hindus, and that that's what is bringing them to the table. The other side has indicated no more than that it violently dislikes Hindu Dharma and would to anything to ensure it is misrepresented. A mere unreasoned ('mysterious') violent dislike is not at all a complete view of their situation. And Hindus should not stop here and blindly accept this as any kind of answer.

Husky · 03-10-2009, 05:59 PM

AmriKKKanistan. Bienvenue. Wilkommen. Welkom. Welcome.
Scratch that. Salaam-alaikum.

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/03/us-...ildren-pro.html
QUOTEUS Public Schools Teaching Children Pro-Islamic Propaganda
mar 9th, 2009

strange that witzel and farmer have nothing to say about this. they only get apoplectic in their defense of anti-hindu propaganda.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shahryar

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/us_...hing_chi_1.html

March 09, 2009
US Public Schools Teaching Children Pro-Islamic Propaganda
By Marc Sheppard
Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus and the 9/11 murderers were not Islamic Fundamentalists but simply a generic "teams of terrorists."Â That's the caliber of politically corrected crap many of our children are being taught in American public schools -- and it's past time all parents took serious notice.

A five year study by Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research cites hundreds of such errors and distortions found in "28 of the most widely used social studies and history textbooks in the United States."Â Their book, The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion, examines the pro-Islamic disinformation they uncovered, including the assertion that Jesus was a Palestinian, not a Jew.
... deleted

Posted by nizhal yoddha at 3/09/2009 08:18:00 PM 0 comments 
No no. The fact is that jesus was a non-existent [edited], like mohammed.
But that's one of the edits that the california textbooks won't allow in, so sadly it wasn't even suggested.

Bodhi · 03-11-2009, 10:25 AM

QUOTE> Elst Ji,
>
> Pranaam!
>
> My 2 francs. Those who fight a battle and loose it learn a lesson.
> One of two things can happen. a) They get more determined, learn from
> mistakes and try to win the war next time. b) Get disheartened and
> fall by the way side.

There are two more possibilities. One is that they deny their defeat and pretend to be victorious, not just to their following but even to themselves. Reread Hindu reports on the CA Board of Education decision in spring 2006, e.g. in Hinduism Today, where it was presented as a victory for the Hindu side. The truth came out indirectly when Hindus formed CAPEEM and challenged the decision in court, obviously not claiming it as an approval of their own psoition anymore.

The other possibility is that the defeat is strictly ignored and never mentioned again. That is the whole Sangh Parivar's attitude to the king-size defeat of Hindu history-rewriting in 2002-4. In all their forums you see the same old wailing about Marxist textbooks, just as if it were still the 1980s and 1990s and no BJP government annex grotesquely failed textbook-rewriting had occurred.

> I personally have no clue who were the
> proponents in this dispute but I hope whoever lost just strengthens
> their resolve.
>

In that case, the first thing they should do is prepare a report on the CAPEEM court case or rather of the whole textbook overhaul effort and analyse its results, i.e. the causes of defeat. They owe that to their sponsors and supporters. And after the massive denial in India, the NRIs could set an example of facing facts and building future victory on the recognition of present defeat.

> Now what I don't understand is why bother fighting a case in the
> US? Why not first fix the stuff in India? Courts/Supreme courts exist
> in India too.<

See above. For the time being, any call for a less anti-Hindu textbook rewriting is without credibility and will only provoke laughter, thanks to MM Joshi and his ilk.

>
> The problem with BJP is it is run by really old people (as in
> 80plus year olds and thus having archaic/old ideas) and conseuqently
> they forget the quintessential part of Indian education which is
> shastrarth (debate)!
>

The late Sita Ram Goel was entirely luced about history even when he had passed 80. Age is not the issue. How can they be clear about history at 80 when they've never bothered to be clear about it in their prime? Do you know anyone in the BJP's younger generation who shows more clarity in the matter, to whom another textbook-rewriting operation could be entrusted?

> So when BJP was in power before fixing the text books they should
> have held debates across the country on various aspects of what they
> wanted fixed and invited scholars from all over the world to debate
> such points. And if BJP had the evidence then there scholars should
> have refuted the existing evidence and convinced if not the scholars
> but at least the public that the new stuff they are introducing is
> backed by solid evidence.
>

Providing evidence and refuting misconceptions is easy enough. I dare say I've done some of that myself. But to no effect. The evidence for the destructive nature of Muslim rule is plentiful, but it will not enter the textbooks because the dominant political will prevents it. And in the few years when a party was in power that would have benefited from more objective history textbooks, it messed up the whole project.

> As I have given examples earlier it so easy to disprove scholars
> like Romila Thapar/Satish Chandra etc. Yet BJP, with its head in the
> sand does not understand it. Perhaps if they come to power this time
> it might! Who knows?
>

How could it perform better now? The BJP, and pretty much the entire Hindu movement, has not done anything to remedy its defects that were highlighted so embarrassingly during the textbook overhaul. The Hindu history conference in Delhi IIC ca. 10 Jan 2009 didn't even have a session to discuss the causes of the Hindu textbook defeat, when this should have been the main theme of the entire conference.

And this is a great moral failure. We've discussed the intellectual failure of the movement before, and it is of course an issue here, but behind it is a moral failure. When you notice your own defects, such as the intellectual failure in the textbook affair, you have a duty to correct them. "Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum": to err is only human, but to persevere in error is diabolical. There is a self-destructive perversity in the Hindu movement's conduct.

Kind regards,

KE

03-12-2009, 02:12 AM

Husky,
QUOTEIf Hindus don't want their kids to learn christian propaganda against Hindu Dharma, then don't live in the US. Simple. And it's the only way to avoid it. Same as how it would be futile for Jews in the first half of the 20th century to expect anything living in christian Germany.
Sorry it's not simple. In democratic societies (which Germany in 40s wasn't), people don't run away from issues, but follow the process that's granted to an individual by the constitution and law of the land. That's exactly what HAF did and CAPEEM's doing.

Most minority groups in US (say blacks and native Americans) have had to fight tooth-nail in court-rooms to have their civil rights back. So HAF and CAPEEMs deserve credit for their efforts. Seems like we have lost sight of the trees in forest.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 03-12-2009, 05:57 PM by Husky.)

QUOTE(Viren @ Mar 12 2009, 02:12 AM)Most minority groups in US (say blacks and native Americans) have had to fight tooth-nail in court-rooms to have their civil rights back.[right][snapback]95412[/snapback][/right]Native Americans have nowhere near the rights they should have. Even recently the American government expressly started dumping waste on one of the few remaining sacred Native American grounds. And from a documentary recently aired here, the memorial space to IIRC Sitting Bull (even though he was a convert) is being encroached upon.

And if there exists any real fair chance, then why, in 21st century US, should Hindus who are tax-paying US citizens have to fight *court* cases to get the equal rights that the US keeps advertising? (Compare: civil unions here were just implemented in straightforward manner by the government when they did their review of civil unions and rights of partners in relationships. No fighting or court cases necessary.) Why is Hindu religion targeted in this manner in the US? For the same reason why US universities' writers write books defaming RKP, Shivaji, our Gods etcetera and then try to get these books released in Bharatam. US non-fiction books talk about how several universities (including IIRC Stanford; and I seem to imagine Harvard too?) are closely linked with the US government. These games they play are not innocent.
It's part of the US' project for Hindus, Hindu Dharma and Bharatam. USAID's World Vision and ultimately Joshua Project are also the US government's pet projects.
So it's not unexpected that there is small chance that Hindus - however excellently they may have mounted a defence - would succeed with their case in the US itself, since it is *intended* that the US situation be referenced back in India "look, even their textbooks say thus and so about the evilllls of Hindooooism" and that the Indian plants would like to support similar materials in India by appealing to US 'authority' again.

QUOTE(Viren @ Mar 12 2009, 02:12 AM)Sorry it's not simple. In democratic societies (which Germany in 40s wasn't), people don't run away from issues, but follow the process that's granted to an individual by the constitution and law of the land. That's exactly what HAF did and CAPEEM's doing.[right][snapback]95412[/snapback][/right]US has the veneer of a democracy. And the promise of equal rights is merely a silencing/pacifying mechanism.
Curious for a democratic society to require being sustained by the murder of Yugoslavia, and by meddling in Nepal, and by meddling in India. And of course the carefully conducted, regular updates in their media on how raoul is our crown prince and how Modi is a villain ('genocide', 'genocide'):
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/03/atl...m-atlantic.html
QUOTEWednesday, March 11, 2009
Atlanticist Propaganda from The Atlantic
Robert Kaplan of The Atlantic Monthly does a hatchet-job on Narendra Modi.
Posted by san at 3/11/2009 05:35:00 AM 3 comments
Labels: atlanticism, gujarat, gutter inspector, modi, persecution industry, pseudo-history, pseudo-secular For an 'innocent', 'democratic' government, the US sure seems to be extremely insistent on being wilfully ignorant and on propagating their lies - I mean, their 'misunderstandings'.
All of this is intentional on their part. The sooner people realise that, the less disappointed they will be by any unpleasant outcomes - unpleasant they may be, but unpredictable they're not. If things were fair, Hindus *would* be the winners in this. But the US government has rigged the board. It's unlikely that Hindus - in spite of their believing the system to be fair - will be allowed to win.

QUOTE(Viren @ Mar 12 2009, 02:12 AM)So HAF and CAPEEMs deserve credit for their efforts. Seems like we have lost sight of the trees in forest.[right][snapback]95412[/snapback][/right]Viren, my comment and Elst's writings are entirely different. They can't be conflated.

Also, I'm not discrediting Hindus' efforts in the US, they do what they can. Merely
- stating that there is a bigger and more important drama that Hindus ought to be focussing on. And all of that is in Bharatam. It's what ultimately matters.
- and pointing out that it is not in the US' interests that Hindus win their case. And that Hindus, regardless of their efforts to redress the situation, will continue to be ridiculed, slighted and deliberately misrepresented in education and other areas, for being Hindus: it is both American social pressure and social engineering.

G.Subramaniam · 03-14-2009, 05:00 AM

QUOTE(Viren @ Mar 12 2009, 02:12 AM)Husky,
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEIf Hindus don't want their kids to learn christian propaganda against Hindu Dharma, then don't live in the US. Simple. And it's the only way to avoid it. Same as how it would be futile for Jews in the first half of the 20th century to expect anything living in christian Germany.
Sorry it's not simple. In democratic societies (which Germany in 40s wasn't), people don't run away from issues, but follow the process that's granted to an individual by the constitution and law of the land. That's exactly what HAF did and CAPEEM's doing.

Most minority groups in US (say blacks and native Americans) have had to fight tooth-nail in court-rooms to have their civil rights back. So HAF and CAPEEMs deserve credit for their efforts. Seems like we have lost sight of the trees in forest.
[right][snapback]95412[/snapback][/right]
</div>

Even in India we have anti-hindu textbooks
There is no option to fight

I also agree that the sangh parivar has to be kept far away
Even PhDs like MM.Joshi are hidebound

06-07-2009, 07:30 AM

Hindu group to get just $175,000 in textbook bias suit

Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/religion/story/1923828.html
By Denny Walsh, dwalsh@sacbee.com

Saturday, Jun. 6, 2009 | Page 3B

The much-ballyhooed brouhaha over how Hinduism is taught in California's secondary public schools has apparently been laid to rest.

A Sacramento federal judge entered final judgment this week in a lawsuit accusing members of the state Board of Education and the state's curriculum czar of unconstitutional actions.

California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials alleged that board members had discriminated against Hindus and their supporters during the 2005-06 adoption process for sixth-grade history and social science textbooks, and that the books represented Hinduism in a demeaning, inaccurate way.

In an order filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. approved a settlement agreement in which the board makes no curriculum concessions but agrees to pay the Northridge-based nonprofit $175,000 â a sum unlikely to cover its costs in connection with the suit that was initiated more than three years ago.

When asked if it was true that his client gained nothing, Seattle attorney Venkat Balasubramani said, "That's one way of looking at it."

For further comment, he referred a reporter to Arvind Kumar, a founder and director of CAPEEM, founded for the express purpose of suing the board.
Kumar did not respond to an e-mail.

But Theresa Garcia, the newly appointed executive director of the Board of Education, said Friday she doesn't see it as a no-win for CAPEEM.

"It was a good outcome for everybody," she said of the changes the board made to the adoption process and textbook content following settlement two years ago of a Sacramento Superior Court lawsuit.

"The board worked really hard to make the changes they had requested following the suit" in state court, Garcia said. "We only wanted to ensure that all religions are depicted accurately."

The two lawsuits were filed after months of fierce public debate during which Hindu organizations packed Board of Education meetings and several scholarly panels were convened on how textbooks should present ancient Hinduism. Two groups had proposed hundreds of changes to the textbooks in the fall of 2005.

The Hindu American Foundation, a Maryland-based nonprofit, sued in Superior Court in 2006 to address the concerns of California Hindu parents that they had been ignored in the textbook-selection process, and that their religion was portrayed mistakenly and unfairly in the state's social studies.

Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette rejected the foundation's content claim but found the textbook adoption process was flawed because the regulations governing it had not been fashioned in accord with California's Administrative Procedures Act.

Adhering to the judge's mandate, the state Board of Education published new regulations for the textbook-adoption process.

"Prior to this, the state board was acting arbitrarily, without public comment and behind closed doors," foundation attorney Suhag Shukla said Friday. "Power was given back to the people."

In a post-judgment settlement in June 2007, the board agreed to pay the foundation $250,000 to defray some of its costs.

But by the time CAPEEM settled the federal action, it had virtually no leverage.
In February, in a 63-page order on cross motions for summary judgment, Damrell gutted the suit, leaving only CAPEEM's claim that the textbook-adoption process violated the Constitution's equal- protection guarantee.

But the judge threw out CAPEEM's claim based on the establishment clause, which requires government neutrality toward religion, as well as its free speech and association clause claims
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call The Bee's Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189.

Bodhi · 06-07-2009, 10:36 AM

Is this in line with the objectives? Is Capeem still calling it victory? Is this it or there is more? Whats the final analysis?

06-07-2009, 10:42 AM

QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ Jun 7 2009, 10:21 AM)Essentially Capeem got screwed, but all the while they were putting out press statements with a positive spin
[right][snapback]98429[/snapback][/right]
It is a victory. It had opened flood gate and token money is just a symbolic.
Local press is trying to spin.

G.Subramaniam · 06-07-2009, 11:02 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Jun 7 2009, 10:42 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ Jun 7 2009, 10:21 AM)Essentially Capeem got screwed, but all the while they were putting out press statements with a positive spin
[right][snapback]98429[/snapback][/right]
It is a victory. It had opened flood gate and token money is just a symbolic.
Local press is trying to spin.
[right][snapback]98432[/snapback][/right]
</div>

What exactly did we win ?

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